Abandonment Of Family. Issues Of Legal Practice

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the crime of abandonment of family and the legal issues that this crime poses, starting from a concrete deed that represented the object of file no. 1637/333/2018 consecutively pending before Vaslui District Court, the Iași Court of Appeal and, again, the Vaslui District Court. The object of the case was represented by the most common form found in the judicial practice of the crime of abandonment of family, respectively the one provided by S.378 (1) (c) Criminal Code, according to which the failure to pay, in bad faith, for 3 months, of the child support established by court, by the person who has the legal obligation of support, to the one entitled to support, is punished by imprisonment from 6 months to 3 years or by a fine. In case of this form of the crime of abandonment of family, the factual element referring to the moment of committing the crime is vital as the existence of the crime is conditioned by the failure to pay the child support for 3 months. Moreover, in case of the crime of abandonment of family, the criminal action is initiated upon the prior complaint of the injured person, so that the establishment of the initial moment of the deed is important in terms of checking compliance with the condition of filing a prior complaint within the legal deadline.